This is from the novel _The Lover_ by A.B. Yehoshua, not by Marguerite Duras. Bat-Adam's movie is a sequence of nicely photographed, gamely acted scenes that are deprived of the logic and momentum that the novel gives them. In a unique stroke of miscasting, Bat-Adam the director gives herself the role of a woman who in the novel is motivated by the loss of her youth and attractiveness. Unfortunately, Bat-Adam doesn't know how to be unbeautiful. Another good actor, Yehoram Gaon, is lost in the male lead because his motivation too is left behind on the pages of the novel. What is left is like a series of well-drawn illustrations bereft of text.
